Dominion Strategy Forum
Miscellaneous => General Discussion => Topic started by: Beyond Awesome on August 22, 2017, 01:59:51 am
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So, I'm starting a new job soon. One of the things they require of me is to send them via email a password so they can create a company email account for me to use.
I don't feel comfortable with this because 1) sending a password via email is potentially asking for trouble
2) I don't feel comfortable with a company spying on me. I understand that the emails I send will be company emails, but I feel privacy should be respected. If they have my password, obviously they can access my emails at anytime. I guess theoretically they could do this anyway, but this just makes it blatantly obvious.
What are your thoughts? How should I handle this situation/tell HR? Should I just make up a random password and email it to them?
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So, I'm starting a new job soon. One of the things they require of me is to send them via email a password so they can create a company email account for me to use.
I don't feel comfortable with this because 1) sending a password via email is potentially asking for trouble
2) I don't feel comfortable with a company spying on me. I understand that the emails I send will be company emails, but I feel privacy should be respected. If they have my password, obviously they can access my emails at anytime. I guess theoretically they could do this anyway, but this just makes it blatantly obvious.
What are your thoughts? How should I handle this situation/tell HR? Should I just make up a random password and email it to them?
I had the same issue, but luckily I was able to change my password at the same moment I logined to email the first time. Ask them if this is a possibility, otherwise I wouldn't work in this company for sure.
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So, I'm starting a new job soon. One of the things they require of me is to send them via email a password so they can create a company email account for me to use.
I don't feel comfortable with this because 1) sending a password via email is potentially asking for trouble
2) I don't feel comfortable with a company spying on me. I understand that the emails I send will be company emails, but I feel privacy should be respected. If they have my password, obviously they can access my emails at anytime. I guess theoretically they could do this anyway, but this just makes it blatantly obvious.
What are your thoughts? How should I handle this situation/tell HR? Should I just make up a random password and email it to them?
The admin of any mail system can look at all the mails. One of your colleagues would probably respond to your e-mails if you were ill or otherwise absent so privacy is an unreasonable demand (for many jobs).
If you want privacy then continue to use an external mail account for private conversations. More generally, you should be careful what you write in e-mails anyway. You don't know if the recipient is going to be careless with your comments and make them widely known.
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Just change it when you get there and don't make a huge deal about it tbh. Unless you work in info sec or maybe some other CS, stellar security practices aren't going to be the norm
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I ended up just making a throwaway password. Thanks for the feedback everyone.
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That is a weird policy. In every job I've ever worked, they just give you an initial password and then you can change it immediately. Very odd that they'd make you send them an initial password, but I presume it's incompetence, not skulduggery.
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i don't think you have a lot to worry about here, but i can speak from personal experience if you suspect more serious privacy invasions are the norm where you work, consider leaving. it will get worse before it gets better.
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So, I'm starting a new job soon. One of the things they require of me is to send them via email a password so they can create a company email account for me to use.
I don't feel comfortable with this because
1) sending a password via email is potentially asking for trouble
2) I don't feel comfortable with a company spying on me. I understand that the emails I send will be company emails, but I feel privacy should be respected.
You're right on 1), but in practice the odds of someone other than a government grabbing it en route are fairly low, and the government probably isn't interested in your work email password. The bigger problem here is that if someone else in the company has your password, they can log in as you, and take nefarious actions while leaving your digital fingerprints behind. Once you're more established in the company, you might try pointing out that as long as passwords aren't kept private, any digital audit trails the company keeps aren't going to be on solid legal ground if there's a problem.
On 2), I'm afraid you don't have a leg to stand on. Any emails you send on the company's system are the company's property, which they have every right to look at. Assume they do, and use your work email only for company business, never for personal messages.
Technically, there's a strong chance that your employment agreements even give the company ownership of your personal emails, if you write them using a company computer, regardless of what email service you use. I haven't seen a company try to enforce that, but be warned that companies often do install their own security certificates in any web browsers on their machines. These give them the ability to spy on and record even encrypted (https) web sessions. I always install my own copy of Firefox, and use that if I want to check my personal mail, or do any shopping or banking from work.
There are usually some other surprises hidden in the fine print of employment agreements. Feel free to post them here if you can; it's often interesting to compare them.
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2) E-mails are not private. At the very least, your company can read them. Depending on your line of work, they may even be semi-public. For instance, my emails are discoverable in court cases. Further, clients can request them (not even our own company!). Government e-mails are subject to all sorts of varying disclosure/information requirements; hence Clinton (and others) wanting so badly to set up their own private servers.